


ghosts haunt this mountain

by Areiton



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adopted Cats, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Cats, Codependency, Depression, General Ross is the actual worst, Grief/Mourning, Inktober 2019, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery takes time, Self-Sacrifice, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve goes to live on a mountain and be sad, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, and Bucky is a mess, sad Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-11-09 10:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 10,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20851919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: This house on it’s lonely mountain looks old, trapped in the past. Haunted by it’s ghosts.A house as haunted as the man who lives in it seems just about right.





	1. Rings

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go again! I'm going to be following the Inktober prompt list to tell a complete story. Let's see what the hell happens.

Rings

When he goes, he goes with only this: a bag of clothes. A bundle of letters. A clatter of pencils. A ring of silver and stone. 

He goes and he feels like a ghost, slipping away, the taste of brackish water still in his mouth, bruises still dark on his skin. 

Tony helps. 

Tony looks at him on the bed, all shattered to pieces and Steve looks at him, this man he never meant to care about, this friend he never looked for. 

_He didn't look. _

"Go," he says. "You need to go." 

"Bucky--" he starts and Tony shakes his head, his hand tight around Steve's ankle and even that hurts. 

"I'll find him, Steve. Tasha and I--we'll find him. You need to go." 

There's fear, real and tasting of pennies, in his tone. 

"Please," Tony says, and Steve thinks about the bridge and the gorge and the white ice rushing up to meet him. 

"Ok," he says. 

~*~ 

He goes. Clothes and pencils and letters tucked into a rucksack and a ring clattering against his dog tags, the old Indian rumbling between his legs and his whole world against his back. 

He goes, the shield and the uniform left with Tony and it feels wrong, feels like he’s leaving part of himself behind. 

It feels like staring in disbelief out a racing train as his best friend’s screams echoed around him. 

~*~ 

“Why the ring?” Tony asks, once, when Steve requests it from the Smithsonian. The metal is scarred and dull and slightly misshapen. He remembers that--a fight Bucky had dragged him out of, the sound of firsts on flesh and the sharp yelp of pain that rang out when metal and metal collided, when Bucky’s fist collided with a trashcan instead of the O’Leerey boy. 

“It’s Bucky’s,” he says, and Tony goes silent, and fetches the ring. 

~*~

The house is small, dark wood and riverstone and a covered porch sagging in one corner. A blue and white truck that looks almost as old as he feels sits near a barn that looks one stiff breeze from collapse. 

For a moment, the bike ticking under him and the house looming in front of him he wonders what the hell he's doing. 

Bucky would laugh and laugh, if he were to see him, here and now. _ What’s a city boy like you gonna do out here? _

He wasn’t though--a city boy. Not always. There were those horrible wonderful years, in the war, when cities were few and far between and bombed out shells, more often than not. They lived rough, close the earth, and he learned to kill for food as much as for the war. 

This--this is not that, but he thinks maybe. 

Maybe. 

This house on it’s lonely mountain looks old, trapped in the past. Haunted by it’s ghosts. 

He shifts, and the ring rattles against his chest, and he nods. Lowers the stand and swings off the bike, his pencils letters clothes shifting at his back. 

A house as haunted as the man who lives in it seems just about right. 


	2. Mindless

**Mindless **   


He drifts. 

Sometimes, he knows where he is, what he is about. He knows there is blood on his hands, metal and flesh, and in his mouth, and a savage sort of pleasure in the dying light of the ones who hurt him. 

Sometimes, he wakes and he aches and he doesn’t know why. 

He drifts, and he dreams. 

Of a beautiful boy and righteous rage, and a tender smile. 

Of a cold train and the ripping wind and endless blue eyes. 

Of a bridge and a battle and a whispered question. 

He drifts and he dreams and he, slowly, comes back to himself. 

~*~ 

Coming back to life  _ hurts. _

He thinks it is because he was never dead, only a hollow shell, a mindless machine, but the memory remains, the afterimage caught against the black of his brain, and he sees them--the little children shattered in a garden, the dark road and crumpled car, the screaming crowds and sobbing wife, the explosions and burning buildings and  _ blood _ \--when he closes his eyes. 

It would be easier, if he were dead. 

If he was what they made him. 

Weapons are not marked by grief and regret, are not haunted by the dead. 

Weapons are not brought back to life by a shocked question and a stubborn ass and a fear so deep it shook what they did, shook the protocols and training and conditioning and let him, just for a moment, be more than mindless. 

Coming back to life  _ hurts. _

But Steve is here and he will walk through another century of blood and torture, to reach Steve on the other side. 

~*~ 

It takes him a month to come back to himself enough to realize what is missing, and a week after that to pin down the Widow. 

“Where is he?” the Asset asks, and she squirms on the end of his knife. 

Bucky thinks Steve will be  _ furious _ he stabbed a friend. Winter doesn’t give a fuck. She’s  _ hiding _ Steve,  _ keeping  _ him from the Asset. 

He has killed for far less. 

“He’s  _ happy _ ,” she spits. 

His lips twist into a snarl, white noise filling his ears and her lips are white and bloodless, hand scrambling at his metal wrist.

The blow catches him off-guard and as he spins to find the attacker, he realizes--that white-noise wasn’t only his fucked up brain. 

“You aren’t gonna get to him by killing the spider, Robocop,” Iron Man says, his voice metallic and distant and the Asset blinks. 

White afterimages against his eyelids, a crumpled car, an old man, a pretty woman. 

He blinks again. 

The memory vanishes and Iron Man hovers in front of him, protective, between him and the Spider. “Where is he?” he demands. 

“I can’t tell you that,” Stark says. 

Stark, Anthony E. Genius level intellect, master engineer, near invincible in the armour. Winter’s eyes narrow, speculative. Hydra had never called for his death, but he stand between the Asset and Steve. 

He  _ could  _ kill him. The Asset is not a mindless weapon to be wielded anymore. But Winter--Winter could kill him. 

_ Steve wouldn’t like it, _ a voice whispers and his shoulders lower, just a little. 

Just enough that the whine eases and dies, and Stark’s faceplate folds away and he gives Bucky a sympathetic stare. “You aren’t ready, yet, Freeze Pop. But--when you are--when you both are--I’ll take you to him myself.” 

Bucky trembles, a minute shiver shaking his frame and he says, voice weak, “He’s safe?” 

Stark’s face goes soft, gentle.  _ Kind.  _ “He’s safe.” 

He crumples, cut string puppet unsure of his next move, no handlers, no Steve to tug him into motion. He stays there for a long time, on aching knees, mind empty and racing all at once, until a small, delicate hand that could kill him in five ways without trying, squeezes his shoulder. “Let us help you.” 

~*~ 

Coming back to life  _ hurts.  _

Bucky thought he knew that, when he broke his conditioning and dragged his mission from the dark river, saved his life instead of snuffing it out. 

Sitting in Stark’s tower and being taken apart--that is  _ excruciating.  _

“You can’t go to him like this,” Tony says, and there’s regret in his voice. “You’re riddled with trackers, Barnes--not just your arm. They’re  _ inside  _ you. Your masters would follow you right to his doorstep.” 

“We have to make you safe for him,” Natasha says, while they spar and he moves like a deadly predator, strikes without hesitation or remorse and only ever pauses when Steve flashes in front of him. “No one will like it much if you see him and try to kill him again.” 

“You can’t undo everything they did in a month,” Winter tells them, one night, exhausted, the new metal arm hanging unfamiliar and strange at his side. 

“You’re never going to undo everything they did,” Bucky says. 

“That’s not the goal. You and Steve--” Tony makes a frustrated noise. “You aren’t going to get  _ better _ alone. Maybe that’s unhealthy--but you need each other. Both of you do. We’re just trying to prevent the mindless killing machine from making a reappearance when we leave the two of you alone on a mountain.” 

Hope sparks hot in his chest, a warmth he hasn’t felt in long decades, since before the war, since a smiling ball of sunshine and sass straddled his hips and smiled. 

Coming back to life  _ hurts. _

But--he would walk through hell and back, for Steve, had done it once and would happily do it again. 

He shifts, and says, simply. “What next?” 


	3. Bait

**Bait**

"There's something living in the barn," he tells Tony. 

The little glowing image of his friend quirks an eyebrow. "It's a barn, Rogers. It's supposed to have things living in it." 

Steve makes an impatient noise, sharply dismissive. "That thing almost came down last rainstorm. If there's anything living in it, it's taking it's life in it's own hands."

"And we couldn't have that," Tony drawls. He's poking at a gauntlet, barely paying any attention to Steve. It's been two months of weekly check ins and Steve rambling at length about the falling down house and barn and what new thing he's found to entertain himself. "If you're worried, tear the barn down. Or lure the beastie out." He grins at Steve. "I can make some traps." 

"I am not  _ trapping _ it," Steve says, scandalized. Pauses. "What even would I use for bait?" 

Tony's eyes brighten and he opens his mouth and Steve says, quick and severe, "Don't." 

He pouts a little, but lapses back into silence. 

"You look happy," Tony says, once, as they're ending the call. 

Steve doesn't answer. 

Later, though. When he's sitting on the rotting porch and can feel the eyes on him from the barn and the wind in the trees, he thinks--is that what this is? 

~*~ 

He doesn't get traps. 

But he does put out bits of food and asks Tony to send him a surveillance camera. He figures if the food does lure a bear out, he can handle it. 

He fought the Red Skull once--what's a grizzly to  _ that _ . 

~*~ 

Life on the mountain is not all luring out whatever is living in his barn. He spends his days tearing apart the cabin. Putting it back together is harder, slower, but the longer he's there, the more he can see the changes, the effort of what he's doing. 

He can see the thing he's building, tangible walls around him. He paints the bathroom eggshell blue, and his bedroom--the only bedroom--a blue so deep it's almost black, something that reminds him of the icy waters of the Atlantic and tries not to wonder what it says about him that it's comforting. 

Reflooring the cabin takes the better part of two weeks. He stalls on the bathroom for three weeks, and then slams into the same issue in the kitchen before he finally relents and calls Clint to come and help him with plumbing. 

The cabin looks less haunted, then it was, when he first drove up.

~*~ 

It takes a week before he calls Tony. 

"There's nothing on the damn cameras," he says. 

Tony laughs, delighted, and promises to come and help in a few days. 

~*~ 

He saves the porch for last, rips it to pieces with his bare hands and relish and it--it doesn't feel special. Not like he's ripping apart some facade in himself. 

It feels like work, like pulling something apart to put something in its place, and he thinks--that's the whole point. 

That's why Tony sent him here. 

He smiles, just a little, and curses when a nail digs into his palm. 

~*~ 

The day he finally finds the barn squatter, he does so by accident. 

He's jogging--he's worn a jogging track through the woods, a four mile loop he runs three times before the sun comes up most mornings--when he hears a tiny, forlorn,  _ mew _ .

It stops him, and he wipes at his face, heart pounding. It comes again, that sad little kitten cry and he tips his head, looking for it. 

The kitten--a tiny bundle of ginger fluff and sad sounds--wobbles out of some ferns and Steve  _ coos _ . 

He'll deny it later, but for the moment only Red and him can hear it, so. He leans down, reaches for the kitten carefully--and a streak of furious gray launches itself from the shadows of the barn to claw at his hand, snarling and hissing. 

Steve stumbles back and lands on his ass, cursing up a blue streak and stares in shock at his elusive house guest. 

~*~ 

The cat is furious and bitchy with Steve, and endlessly gentle with Red, an exasperated kind of affection that tolerated the kitten falling over his oversized paws and chewing on Jerk's torn ear. It's all matted fur and narrowed eyes and a lashing tail and the ugliest mug Steve's ever seen. 

He kind of loves the damn thing. Even if his hand hurts like hell. 

~*~ 

He's got Red in his lap when Tony pulls up, and Jerk glaring distrustfully from the half-finished porch. 

"You're late," Steve says, because he's been expecting Tony for the past three hours. 

Jerk rumbles, and hisses, reaching up with claws out to pluck Red from Steve's hands and skitter away. 

"I had to pick up your packages," Tony says, and Steve looks at him, curiously. 

Bucky stands next to him. 

Bucky stands next to him, and he waves, a tiny little thing, but his gaze keeps slipping past Steve, to that damn cat and a half smile curls at the edges of his lips. "You still adopt the ugliest fucking things," he says, voice rough and shy. 

"Adopted you, didn't I?" Steve says, thoughtless, and it startles a laugh from Tony and a blinding smile from Bucky and his breath catches, his knees giving out. 

It doesn't matter. 

It doesn't matter because Bucky catches him, impossibly--Bucky catches him. 

  
  



	4. Freeze

**Freeze **

The thing is--momentum gets him through everything that came before. The surgeries to remove Hydra's trackers, the triggering from Widow and Stark. The nightmares from hours of therapy. There's a goal, a prize at the end he's moving toward. 

And now he's here, and Steve is shivering next to him and a cat is glaring at him and he has no fucking idea what to do next. 

He freezes. 

Goes utterly still with Steve slumped in his arms and no idea what to do with him. 

_ Keep him, keep him, he wants so fucking badly to keep him.  _

They make it back into the cabin because of Tony, up the rickety porch and fall down facade and into something that looks whole and good and safe.

Tony whistles, impressed, and Bucky might even agree with him if he could think past  _ Steve _ and  _ stay  _ and  _ safe.  _

If he could make himself  _ move.  _

He feels like he's in the ice again, wrapped up in cold and dreaming. 

"This isn't real," he whispers and feels Tony tense at his back and Steve--Steve makes a tiny distressed noise, pulling back and no no no, he didn't want that, doesn't  _ ever  _ want that. He whines and Steve quiets, stills in his arms. 

"It's real," Steve murmurs, presses like a promise against his throat and some of the ice thaws, just enough that that his arms tighten around Steve and even if he is frozen in this moment--he's frozen with Steve. 

~*~ 

Steve is staring at him, and there's wonder in his eyes and questions too and Bucky can answer those. 

"I remember," he says. "Not everything. But enough." 

Steve swallows. "Me?" 

Bucky smiles and nods, "Yeah, punk. You." 

~*~ 

Tony pokes at the barn and bitches about bringing traps Steve doesn't need and Steve sits on the broken steps and smiles. There are tears still wet on his cheeks and his smile trembles at the edges but he hasn't quit smiling. Not even once. 

Bucky leans against him, and Jerk glares from the shadows as Red toddles out toward them both and Steve says, "He's a good man." 

Bucky nods. "He made it safe for me to come here."

Steve twitches. Looks at him, eyes sharply questioning and so hopeful he  _ aches _ and says, "And now that you are here? What happens next, Buck?" 

He feels frozen. 

He wonders if he will ever feel alive again and thinks--he only ever does when he is caught in Steve's bright eyes. 

He doesn't answer. He doesn't know how to answer. 

"What do you want, Buck?" Steve asks, gentle and impossible to resist. 

"I want to stay," he says. Honest and vulnerable and terrifying. 


	5. Build

**Build**

Tony stays through the morning. He leaves while Bucky is still asleep, ensconced in the spare room, Red perched on his pillow and purring. 

“Don’t you want to say goodbye?” Steve asks, pushing a mug of coffee into Tony’s hands and he shrugs.

“It’s not. I know where to find you both. He needs sleep more than he needs a false farewell, and you both need to settle into your new routine. Can’t do that with me underfoot.” 

Steve doesn’t have an answer for that, or words for how grateful he is, so he stands there, mouth opening and closing, helpless, and Tony smiles. It’s a gentle, warm thing, softer than he can remember ever seeing on Tony’s face. 

“Take care of each other,” he says, softly, and then he steps back and down and away. 

~*~ 

Living with Bucky again--it’s odd. There’s a disconnect, an awkwardness that he didn’t feel even when he was ninety pounds of rage and grief and Bucky was everything he ever wanted. It’s easy, when one of them wakes from nightmares. Easy when Bucky is quiet and withdrawn and it’s Steve’s hands, gentle on his shoulders, that draws him back. Easy when Steve is worn down and tired and cursing the porch he will never be finished with and Bucky putters around him, grumpy and kind and caring. 

That is easy. 

But the mornings, when Buck stumbles out of his bed, hair messy and face soft and Red riding on his shoulder, Jerk trailing angrily. When Buck blinks at him, soft-eyed and dazed from hours reading. When Buck bites his lip and slices into a pie, oven warm and fragrant and smiles up at Steve, pretty and pleased--he doesn’t know what to do in those moments. 

When he wants Bucky so badly it aches, a steady pulse of want that never abates and he doesn’t know _ how _ to live with Bucky, with this unacknowledged third presence, a roommate all it’s own. 

~*~ 

He wakes one night to the sound of howling winds and an all might crash, and stumbles onto the half-finished porch to see the barn, collapsed in ruins. Jerk sits on the railing, glaring at it, furious and lonely, and Steve reaches for him. 

Jerk swipes at his hand, hissing and he curses, wrapping a hand around the bloody scratch marks. 

A metal hand deposits Red next to Jerk, and some of the tension runs out of the cat as the kitten snuggles close, sleepy and purring, and Bucky draw him back inside. “That cat hates me,” he says, forlorn, and Bucky nods, a tiny smile on his lips. 

“Yeah. He kinda does.” 

~*~ 

He’s sketching, when Bucky sits next to him. He smells fresh and clean, hair wet from the shower, skin still damp, and Steve wants to turn into him, wants to bury his face in the hollow of Bucky’s throat and live there, with Bucky’s arms around him, where he’s safe. 

He misses being able to curl into Bucky and hide and be protected. 

“I want to build the barn back,” Bucky says. 

Steve makes a grumbling noise and Bucky shakes him, just a little. “Do you remember back in the war--when we’d talk about after?” 

Steve tries very hard not to remember that. It  _ hurts _ to remember the war and everything that he lost. “I told ya, when we got home--I was gonna build you a big studio, where you could draw and paint and never have to worry about me fussing at you to clean it up.” 

Steve goes very still against him, and says, “Buck--” 

“I’m gonna build that for you,” he says. “Red doesn’t need a whole ass barn to herself.” 

He doesn’t let Steve go, and Steve doesn’t say the words, bottled tight in his throat, the memories and promises and dreams that crowd close, haunting this moment. 

He let’s himself be held, by Bucky’s words and hope. 


	6. Husky

**Husky **

He works through most of a month. Steve helps, of course Steve helps. Still. The bulk of the building falls on him and he doesn't mind. He likes the way his muscles ache when he stands in the shower after a long day, likes the way Steve is gentle with him, spoiling him with food and backrubs while Bucky groans his pleasure. He likes that he's creating something new, after so many years of destruction. 

He  _ loves _ the way Steve's eyes will linger on him, when he's bare chested and working, sweat sheened and almost, almost he feels like that boy a hundred years ago, peacocking and preening for the only pair of eyes he ever gave a damn about. 

It's the only indication Steve wants him at all, those lingering glances that burn too hot, and the flush that colors his cheeks. And that--that frustrates the hell outta him. 

Because he's  _ here _ , and  _ whole _ , or as close to it as he's going to get, and maybe he's not better, maybe they're both shattered by the past and he wakes nine nights outta ten, silent screams trapped in his throat--but he knows what he wants. 

He knows  _ who _ he wants. 

~*~ 

Bucky stumbles into the kitchen and almost face-plants into Steve, and whines when Steve laughs, a soft shaking that feels like the steadiest thing in the world. 

"Coffee?" Steve asks, his hands warm brands on Bucky's shoulders, his voice husky and fond, and Bucky whines, nods his head against that broad chest. 

Steve's arms are warm and safe and strong, and when he's half awake, he doesn't have to move away--Steve holds him like this is where he belongs, where they both want him to belong. 

It doesn't last--not past that first pot of coffee, and Steve nudging him and murmuring, "You want breakfast?" 

But while it does, Bucky soaks it up.

~*~ 

Jerk watches, perched on the half finished wall while Bucky puts drywall in the barn. Steve has wandered down the mountain for supplies, and to take Red to get her shots, and Jerk is furious about it, a steady snarl coming from him as he waits impatiently for his little charge to get back. 

"Can't help ya, pal," Bucky says, when the snarl twists into a plaintive yowl. "I'd say she's safe as houses, but Stevie has a habit of doing stupid shit when he's got no one to talk sense into him." 

A worrisome thought, he considers, nailing the drywall in place. But he's got Red to watch out for, and Bucky  _ thinks _ that'll keep him out of trouble. 

Still--neither relax until the truck trundles back up the mountain and stops in front of the half finished barn. Jerk sulks in the shadows as Bucky wipes sweat off his face, walking over to help Steve with the supplies. 

Red is making a racket in her little box, and Steve is laughing, eyes bright and warm, and he's here, home and whole and not getting himself into trouble Bucky can't help him get out of. His voice is low and warm, a husky croon as he murmurs to their cat, "Ok, honey, ok, just gimme a sec." 

He pops open the box and kneels down, letting Red scramble out, and she beelines for Jerk, pouncing on the bigger, meaner tomcat with an ecstatic noise that's muffled when he rolls her into the dirt, scrabbling playfully. 

Steve is laughing, and beautiful and Bucky is breathless, watching him,  _ wanting _ him. 

"Hey, Buck," he says, sunshine bright, and Bucky steps into his space, hands on narrow hips and kisses that sweet sunshine smile right off his pretty lips. 

Steve makes a noise, startled surprise and Bucky licks it from his mouth, nips at the pouty lower lip that drives him  _ batshit _ and whines when Steve’s fingers slip into his hair, twisting and tugging and his mouth opens, takes and  _ takes _ and Bucky doesn’t mind, not Steve, never him, Steve’s never taken what Bucky wouldn’t happily give. 

“Bucky,” he murmurs, adorably breathless, when Bucky finally pulls away. There’s a flush, hot and lovely, in his cheeks and his lips are spit-slick and rose red and Bucky thinks, he’s never been prettier than this. 

“Welcome home, doll,” he murmurs. He steals another kiss, and then reaches around and grabs some bags, leaving a stunned, stunning Steve to stumble in behind him. 

  
  
  



	7. Enchanted

**7\. Enchanted**

Steve wakes and registers this--Red is purring in Bucky's hair. And Bucky is curled around him, impossibly small tucked next to him, metal arm looped over Steve's waist and holding on tight. 

He closes his eyes and smiles, because this--this is what he woke up and knew he would never get. 

This is the life he wanted, the life that died before it had a chance to form, the life he grieved in a bombed out bar in Europe and mourned as he put the Valkyrie in the ice. 

And yet--impossibly, they're here, together, wrapped up in each other and Bucky  _ wants _ him, something he didn't dared hope for, when he saw Bucky on that bridge, a ghost brought to life by longing and madmen.

For all the hell that they have both survived and the endless march of years, he thinks maybe they are leading charmed lives, to have found each other again. 

Bucky stirs and Red mews, plaintive and sleepy and big ice blue eyes blink sleepily, red kissed lips turn into a sweet smile, and he thinks. 

_ It's a charmed life, but we earned this.  _

~*~ 

The thing is--they're happy. 

He thinks sometimes that it's an enchanted bubble, a hidden haven on the mountain with their house and their half finished barn and sundrenched kisses, with Jerk's low growl and Red's easy affection and Bucky's feet tucked under his thigh while Steve reads to them in the evenings. 

They're  _ happy _ , a kind of blissful stolen happiness that feels overdue and impossible to sustain. 

Bucky wakes, sometimes, screaming and thrashing, begging for mercy from ghosts, demons who haunt him still. 

Steve wakes, frozen and silent next to Bucky, heart pounding, blood ice rushing in his veins, and the oppressive dark is too much like his arctic prison and his violent shivers wakes Bucky. 

The thing is--they're haunted, the darkness filled with memories and ghosts and regrets. And still, they are happy. 

Happier than he expected, happier than he thinks they deserve. 

There, on their mountain, their enchanted bubble of isolation--they're happy and safe and their ghosts wait in the shadows, but Bucky's arms, Steve's kisses, keep them at bay. 

~*~ 

"Did you ever think we'd get this?" Bucky asks, one night. He's trembling and heavy limbed and lovely on Steve's side, rubbing come into Steve's still sweat slick belly. "Did you ever think--" 

"Do you remember when Ma died," Steve asks. 

Bucky goes still and his fingers skirt the metal of Steve's tags, coiled on his chest. "Do you remember what she left behind?" 

"Bills and books," Bucky says, slow, as if the words taste funny, like he doesn't know if they're familiar, when the scent of them tugs at memories. 

Steve nods, because that's all that anyone left, back in those days, on the heels of the Depression and a step ahead of the war. "She left somethin' else, though. Remember." 

Bucky's fingers glance over the ring, and Steve smiles, presses a kiss to his forehead and rolls so he can fumble the tags and chain over his head. He unstrings the ring and holds it there, between them, misshapen silver and broken stone and he thinks, now more than ever, it fits. It belongs here, between them, with them. 

"It's yours," he says, softly. "It's always been yours." 

Bucky looks at him, eyes shiny and beautiful in the dark, and his hand clenches over that ring, that promise, as he leans up to kiss Steve, hot and hard and demanding. Steve let's him, lets him take everything he wants, and he smiles, when Buck pushes him to his back, straddles him. "I always wanted to get here," he says, a whispered confession in the dark. 

~*~ 

The thing is--they are happy, tucked away on their enchanted mountain. 

~*~ 

The thing is--nothing ever lasts. 


	8. Frail

**8\. Frail **

He's happy. 

He has an ocean of blood at his feet, a lifetime of mistakes to make up and atone for, and holes in his memory he won't ever completely fill, and he is happy. 

He builds instead of destroys, and his arm is used to cradle, to caress, to care. 

He's happy, and it feels like a dream, a fever dream, but it's real, he  _ knows _ it's real because he dreamt, in cryo, but those dreams felt like ice touched nightmares, these frail spider-spun fantasies he didn't want and couldn't help but long for and this--this isn't. 

This is real, and solid and lasting. This is an ache in his muscles and claw marks in his ankle and Steve's skin moving under his lips, Steve's cock moving in him, Steve's hands, gripping him. 

It is sweat and honey and sunshine and brilliantly real, solid and strong. 

This isn't a dream. 

~*~ 

He wakes to a nightmare. 

~*~ 

He wakes, and the mountain is burning, the scent of gasoline sharp in his nose, and Steve's skin prickling with sweat under his hand and the sound of crackling flames, and from far far away he can hear the sound of voices, shouting and the clatter of guns. 

This--this stolen moment, this mountaintop haven, is the realest thing he's ever had. 

"Steve," he murmurs, breathes it, his voice flat and hard and tainted with the Soldier. Steve comes awake in a rush, a shudder of tensing muscles and blinking eyes and a mouth that opens. He puts a hand there, stills his questions. He can feel the heat, growing closer. "They're coming," he breathes, into Steve's ear. 

~*~ 

It's easy. 

Slipping from the bed where he was happy is like sliding into the Soldier, a weapon, furious and intent, and he stalks into the night, into the flames, in soft flannel and a tshirt that smells like Steve and sex. 

He kills three that are setting fire to his barn, where he builds a future for Steve and Red, while Jerk snarls nearby, a future that smells like ripe wood and paint, now licked by fire and heat.

He kills one crouched over Red's small, limp body. 

He kills two in the trees where Steve likes to run, chased by the sun. 

He kills four standing by their truck and one with a gun aimed at the front door and loses track when the roof of the barn comes down with a crash, kills until the only heartbeat he can hear is his own and Steve's and the only noise on the mountain is the roar of flames and Steve's soft choked sobs, and the drip of blood from his knife. 

"We should go," he says, and he doesn't turn back to the silence and destruction and death where his first taste of happiness was built. 


	9. Swing

**9\. Swing **

Steve follows Bucky. 

For so much of their life, it was the other way around, Bucky following Steve into danger, into trouble, into fights Steve couldn't get himself out of. And then in the war, Bucky followed and--

He blinks, away from that thought. 

Nothing good lies that way, only regret and grief. 

Bucky pauses a mile from the cabin, rooting around in a hollow tree and emerges with two dirty bags that he slings over his shoulder. A rifle comes next, and he checks it, chambers a round and looks at Steve. "We have to go." 

Steve nods, silent, and follows him into the night. 

He glances back once and stumbles, and a metal hand braces him, holds him upright. "Eyes up, Stevie," Bucky says, and it is Bucky--not the Winter Soldier. 

Bucky has always followed him, but as they come down the mountain, chased by smoke and night lit by fire, the pendulum swings, and Steve follows Bucky. 

~*~ 

He gets them a hotel room, with cash he produces from the go bag. Steve thinks he should ask about it, about the bag or the weapons, but he doesn't. He just follows Bucky into the little room that smells like paint and people and cheap carpet cleaner. "Shower, punk. I want you to get some sleep while I get a car for us but you'll feel better after you shower." 

Steve stares at him, and then, "You've got blood--" 

"Not mine," Bucky says, gently, "I'm fine. We're both fine." 

"Red," he whispers and Bucky flinches. "Red and Jerk--"

"Jerk will take care of Red. Jerk took care of her for all those months, before we found them. They don't need us." 

"She's spoiled, though," Steve says, panic clawing at him, a hot rush of it that doesn't make sense, now, now that they're safe. 

He remembers this, the way he'd be fine, calm and controlled and capable in the middle of a battle, when he led his men, when he didn't feel. 

It was when he was done, the battle receding and the taste of ash and blood lingering in the back of his throat, when he could see that he was safe and Bucky was alive and his men were whole--then he would swing from careful ironclad control to this trembling lost mess that clung to every word Bucky said to. 

Strong, familiar hands close over his shoulders. "Shower, sweetheart. You get cleaned up and an hour of sleep and then we go." 

"Where?" Steve, asks, even though a part of him is desperate to nod and be directed, desperate to let Bucky lead him. 

Bucky would never lead him wrong. "Bucky, what was that." 

Bucky presses a kiss to his lips, and it tastes like sunshine, still. Like sugar and sweet and safe. 

"Shower, sweetheart," he says. "Shower, and sleep, and then we'll debrief." 

He nudges Steve toward the shower, and pliant, shaking and trembling, he goes. 


	10. Pattern

**Pattern**

They leave the mountains in a stolen pickup with fake plates. 

It’s easy to slip back into this, into the patterns and behaviors of the Soldier. Easy to run with one hand on a weapon and one eye cast behind him. 

Harder is keeping Steve moving forward. 

The thing is that he’s never seen Steve like this, shattered open and scooped out, like everything that’s happened has left him too devastated to function. 

It scares Bucky. 

The passive pliant way Steve  _ follows _ him, the way he curls up against the door of the truck, like he’s trying to make that impossibly big body into something small and compact, like he’s trying to disappear entirely. 

Bucky hates it. 

It’s not just that Steve shouldn’t look so fragile and shattered--it’s that he doesn’t want this. 

He doesn’t want to be a weapon again. He doesn’t want this familiar thrum under his skin and the heat of battle in his blood. 

He wants their warm bed and Red chewing on his hair and Jerk snarling and clawing his ankles. 

He wants Steve to tell him everything is ok.

Neither are options, right now. 

He keeps driving. 

~*~ 

There's a burner in his go bag and the second night on the road, while Steve is sleeping, he sends a message to Tasha. 

She sends a set of coordinates back and he memorizes them before he breaks the phone and drops the shattered pieces in the dark, dirty pool. Then he goes back to the hotel room that smells like piss and bleach and curls up behind Steve, eyes trained on the door, a gun coiled loose in his metal hand. 

~*~ 

He takes three days to get them to the safe house, backtracking and switching vehicles twice and laying a trail to the east before he pays cash to put them on a bus. He drags them off three stops into the trip and hotwires a car, bolting to south. Steve watches him, big eyed and silent, following the pattern that Bucky sets of obeying orders, eating when food is pushed into his hands, and staying close. 

It’s unnerving and by the time they pull up to the safe house, Bucky is ready to come out of his skin. 

“Where are we?” Steve asks, and Bucky reaches for the bag. 

“Somewhere safe.” 

Steve blinks, and for a moment, he thinks questions, the burning need to  _ know _ will break through his apathy. 

Instead, he nods, and unfolds himself, following meekly up metal stairs and into a small apartment. 

It’s barren and sparse. A black couch, a table that looks like it’ll collapse under the weight of his go bags, a slightly dining room table. 

The bedroom has a neatly made bed, an empty closet and a dusty bathroom. There’s a keypad on the wall and he presses his thumb to it. A panel slides to the side and Bucky smiles for the first time since he woke up to flames. 

~*~ 

“I’m going to shower,” he says, after they’ve eaten pasta he found waiting in the fridge, fresh and spicy and delicious. He thanks Natasha again, adds it to the tally he owes her, and puts it from his mind. “And then we should look at what info Nat and Stark have put together.” 

Steve doesn’t answer, not until Bucky is almost out of the room. Then he says, “What will we do then?” 

Bucky looks at Steve, and he sees something flicker in his best friend’s eyes. And he feels the Soldier stir, ice cracking and slipping behind his eyes. “We kill them,” he says, simply. 


	11. Snow

**Snow**

Bucky falls asleep in the middle of his shower. 

Steve finds him there, slumped against the wall, soap in his hair, and he feels a pang of guilt. This is his fault--Bucky has been so intent on keeping them safe and keeping him moving that he hasn't slept in days. It's no wonder that he's crashing now, a full meal in his belly and the promise of safety around him. 

Steve slips into the shower and rinses the soap from his hair, before gently manipulating him from the shower. He dries Bucky while he stands, dripping and eyes closed. "I can do it," Bucky mumbles, and Steve hushes him, gentle. 

He tugs sleep pants and a long sleeve thermal on Bucky, and then presses him down on the bed. 

"Gotta look at the info," Bucky says, eyes closed, and cuddling into his pillow. "'s not safe." 

Steve puts a knife under Bucky's pillow and presses a kiss to his temple and says, "I'll keep watch, sweetheart." 

The little remaining tension drains out of Bucky, a strings cut puppet, and he drops into sleep with the ease of the truly peaceful. 

Steve finds his gun, and checks the chamber before he props himself up against the headboard, eyes on the door and does exactly what he promises. 

He keeps watch until morning. 

~*~ 

"It was Hydra," Bucky says. He's been quiet since they got up this morning. It snowed in the night, a thin layer of white frosting the ground and the windows and making Steve shiver, even here, even in the too hot apartment. 

He hates the cold. 

"How did they find you?" 

"I don't know if they did--they might have found you, and decided to take what they could. I haven't been to town since I got here, and there's no way they followed me when I was with Tony." 

"You think Hydra was just--what, milling around in Sunset? It's a city of 500, during peak tourist season, Buck." 

He stares at the table. "I think someone found us. Because they burnt us out, Steve. And those were trained ops. So they were either coming for me--or they were coming for you." 

That makes him pause and ice blue eyes flick up to him. "Would they come for you?" he asks. 

Steve shakes his head, but it's a slow thing. "I don't think so. I don't--they weren't happy, when I left SHIELD." 

"Was there anything to even leave?" Bucky asks. "I thought you pretty well burnt it down, before you had a chance to leave." 

Steve flushes. "Well, they weren't thrilled about that either." 

Bucky stares at the files. "The thing is--we don't have enough intel." 

"Natasha--"

"The ops didn't have any markings, Steve. And they're dead, not like we can ask if they're gonna Heil Hydra or salute the flag." 

"Then what do we do?" Steve snaps, a little stung. 

Bucky is silent, long enough Steve thinks he won't answer at all. Then, "It doesn't really matter--me or you, whichever they were after--they'll come for us." 

Steve stares at him and something like grief flickers in those beautiful eyes. "They'll come for us, eventually. We're never going to have peace, as long as they want us." 

"We can't burn down the US government, Bucky," Steve says and Bucky smiles. 

"No. But we can make sure they never come for you again." 

"How?" Steve asks. 

"We talk to the expert," he says, and Steve's eyes widen. "We get Tony to help us." 


	12. Dragon

**Dragon**

"It wasn't Hydra," Tony says. 

They've been in the little safe house for three days, and Steve is--he isn't quite  _ Steve _ , not yet, but there's hints of it, hints of the man Bucky knows and loves and  _ needs _ , writhing under the surface. 

The shock is wearing off and the rage is burning, just there, just hidden. He thinks, when it finally breaks free, it will be  _ magnificent _ . 

It took Tony less than a day to get to them, when they reached out, and he looks over the intel Natasha provided, and the aerial surveillance of the mountain. Bucky doesn't watch that. He can't. It feels too much like when he belonged to Hydra, like being extracted after a bombing, watching the devastation as he flew over the rubble. 

His stomach turns and he traces the dragon the book he's reading.  _ The Hobbit _ . The little creature makes him smile, and Stevie loves it, when Bucky reads to him. 

"What makes you say that?" 

Tony toggles something up, a bright blue glow in the corner of his eye. "Look at the gear. See here. And here? That's SI tech. And we only sell that to the DOD. So. They're not HYDRA. Or--if they are, the problem goes deeper than you thought, Cap." 

"What do we do?" 

Tony taps his finger on the arc reactor, a nervous tell. He's playing it calm and quiet, but this--it's left him shaken. 

"You can come in," Tony says slowly. "They want you back. That's the goal here. Coming to the Tower--they'll think your conceding." 

"No," Bucky says, and Tony flicks a look at him. Looks back at Steve. There's nothing there but quiet resolve and budding fury. 

"They're not going to stop," Tony says. 

"Then we make him something they don't want," Bucky says, calmly. 

"Unless you wanna undo the serum, I'm not sure what you think that is," Tony says, sharply, and he sees the way Steve's eyes go bright and hopeful for a moment. 

"That isn't an option," Bucky says. "Why did they stop coming after the Iron Man suit?" 

Tony's eyes widen, and he sees the instant it clicks. 

"Bucky--" 

"Do it," he orders. 

Tony flicks a look at Steve, who is still staring, silent, and then he nods. He exits, and it's a strategic retreat more than anything. 

Smart though. Bucky wouldn't stay for this, if he didn't have to. 

"What did you just do?" Steve asks, and Bucky let's out a slow breath. 

"They're not going to stop coming for you, Steve. The DOD, the US government--they think you're their property. And I've been the property of Hydra to know what possession looks like--they're not going to give up just because you want to put down the shield." 

"Bucky--" 

He squeezes the book in his hand, the dragon and tiny hobbit crinkled under metal, Steve's temper burning under the surface, and says, "I'm giving them something else to possess." 

And watches that legendary temper burst into flame. 


	13. Ash

**Ash**

"This isn't what I want," he says. 

"Don't do this," he begs. 

"You're a fucking asshole," he shouts. 

In the end--it doesn't matter. 

In the end, it goes like this: 

He rages, a furious fire that has nowhere to go, nothing to spend itself on, a rage that burns into ash and all that is there is Bucky, his Bucky, steady and unflinching. 

He weeps, a broken, angry sobbing that does nothing, while Bucky curves around him, and murmurs his apologies. 

He pleads, and bargains and threatens, and Bucky nods and nods and nods, and when Tony arrives, a three-piece suit and apologetic expression, he goes. 

And he leaves Steve there, furious and grief-stricken and terrified. 

~*~ 

He promises, before he goes, that it won't be forever. 

Steve doesn't know that he believes him. 

He makes Stevie promise to go home. That--that is harder. 

He doesn't want to, is the thing. He wants to chase them both, wants to barge into whatever little room Tony has squirreled Bucky away in and drag him home. 

He wants to burn Hydra to the ground, and drag the US military establishment down into the rubble. 

He wants to curl up in the bed that still smells like them, like sex and Bucky's shampoo and faintly, gunmetal, and never leave. 

In the end--he does this: 

He calls Sam Wilson. 

~*~ 

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sam asks him, and Steve presses his lips into a thin line and shakes his head. 

Sam doesn't push, just drives while Steve stares into the darkness. They've been driving for three hours before Steve says, "I don't know where to go from here." 

"That's ok," Sam says, confidently. "I do." 

~*~ 

The house is tucked into the bayou. Sam taps the horn twice as he trundles up to it, and a dog, sleeping on the porch lifts its head to bark lazily at them. 

"Where are we?" 

"About ten miles outside New Orleans," he says. A black woman stands next to the dog, her hands on narrow hips, lips curved into a smile. "That's my mama." 

Steve looks at him, all hot panic and fear. Last time he was somewhere that felt like home, it ended in fire and ash. 

"Sam--" 

"You can't do this for him," Sam says, softly. "You can't fix it and you can't give them what they want. So there's no point in killing yourself with worry. Come inside. Mama cooked up some jambalaya and cornbread when I told her we were comin'." 

"I don't--" 

"You need to breath, man," Sam says. "You need to breath and you need to let him fight this fight." 

He doesn't say anything else, just pushes out of the car, and after a long moment, Steve follows him into the muggy heat. 


	14. Overgrown

**Overgrown **

Tony is quiet next to him, fingers tapping impatient at his chest, the only sign that he's anxious. He would be anxious, but he's too tired for that, too worried about Steve. 

Tony had called Sam and that both settled his nerves and ramped them higher. 

The idea of Sam taking care of Steve, of holding him when he sobbed made Bucky's fingers twitch in anger and desperation. 

The door opens, and three MPs file in, flanking General Ross. His eyes are narrow and hungry and at his side, Tony straightens, a smile so false it makes Bucky twitch curling at the corner of his lips. 

"You surrendered yourself," Ross says, eyes narrow. 

"No. I agreed to come in to answer questions. My lawyer says that meeting doesn't open me to any legal repercussions." 

"And those lawyers?" Tony pipes up, "Those are the Stark legal team--he's getting the good advice." 

Ross twitches, a touch of dislike eking into his features. "Why meet with us at all?" 

"Because you're trying to take something I want." 

Ross sits back, a faint smile on his lips. "You'll have to be more specific, Barnes. I'm not sure what you're talking about." 

Fury ripples through him and his hand tightens, metal plates shifting and creaking. 

"I'm talking about the tac team that attacked one of my private residences," Tony says, coolly. He tosses his tablet down. "In gear that you requisitioned, General." 

There's a split second hesitation, and Bucky goes still and cold. They had suspected. They wouldn't be here, if they hadn't suspected. But that hiccup of hesitation confirmed it, and the knowledge that he's sitting across from the man who shattered his life, who burnt it down--it infuriates him. 

He takes a breath, smoothers it. Pushes it down where the rage and grief and fear--for Steve, for their kittens and their house and the future, fragile and hopeful--live. He hooks a lock of hair behind his ear. It's getting out of hand, overgrown and unruly and he thinks absently he should have had Stevie cut it before he left. Too late for that now. 

"What was the goal?" Tony asks, bored. "What did you even want?" 

Ross's lips tighten. "I suppose, if I did know what that attack--tragic, I might add, I'm glad no one was hurt--was about, I'd say the DOD wants their property back." 

Tony opens his mouth, and Bucky says, "There were two injured that night. Not including the tac team I killed." 

Ross flicked a look at him, and Bucky smiles. It's not a nice smile. It's the last thing hundreds saw before they died, and it makes a hardened general swallow hard. "My cats died," Bucky murmurs. 

Ross blinks. Opens his mouth and then closes it again. 

"You can't have Steve," Bucky says, and Winter fades away, buried under the briskness in his tone as he sits up. Regret curls in him, and he puts it with the grief and rage and fear and looks at the general. 

I'll kill him one day, he thinks. 

"Steve Rogers is retired. You can't have him. But you can have me." 


	15. Legends

**Legends**

He hears about it in whispers. 

~*~ 

Sam keeps him tucked away, and when he has to leave, Natasha appears, magic, slipping into Sam’s mother’s home as naturally as breathing. They both keep him from the news, with books and work, and endless runs through the muggy heat. Natasha drags him to New Orleans, once, and they wander the Quarter, and she sits patiently sipping lemonade, her hair in two farmgirl braids while Steve stared at a blank page and didn’t sketch a damn thing. 

“I want to know,” he says. 

“You need to give him time,” Natasha says, chewing on ice. 

“You aren’t ready for that,” Sam warns. 

He doesn’t say that not knowing is worse. That whatever they’re saying couldn’t be as bad as the turmoil. 

“There’s nothing to know,” Tony tells him, tired. “Not yet.”

~*~

He moves back to New York, into Sam’s Harlem apartment, a ghost in the guest room. The city that is his, that is bred into his bones is too loud, too bright and garish, overcrowded and loud after the months on their mountain, the months in the Wilson’s bayou home. 

It doesn’t fit, and he doesn’t know how to make himself fit. 

It’s worse even than when he came out of the ice and nothing felt right, the world something beautiful and  _ other. _

He thinks, this time the problem isn’t the world. It’s him. 

He doesn’t belong here, alone. 

He misses the quiet of their mountain and Bucky’s voice, low and amused, drawling at Jerk while he worked, his breathing heavy and deep next to Steve in their bed, the tiny rumble of Red’s purring. 

He miss his  _ home _ . 

~*~ 

Four months after Bucky walked out of the safe house with Tony, Sam gets an alert. 

Steve tenses, where he’s sketching. He looks up and Sam’s brow is creased and worried, and he flicks a look at Steve, searching. 

“Go,” he says, the Avengers assemble call engraved in his memory, and an itch in his bones begging him to answer. 

He doesn’t. He sits there, pencil gripped too tight in his fingers, and listens as Sam scrambles for his go bag and talks to Natasha through comms he fits to his ear as natural as breathing. 

“Where?” Steve asks, when he’s striding to the door, bag over his shoulder, mouth set in a tight line and almost vibrating with excitement. 

“Chicago. Nat says it’ll be over quick--I’ll be home soon.” 

Steve nods, and smiles and he goes. 

~*~ 

He watches the news. Natasha messages from the quinnjet and tells him not to--that they’re fine and he’ll be happier waiting--but he turns on the news and they’re there, in brilliant color. Tony in his gorgeous red and gold armor, controlling the skies with Sam and his sleek metal wings. 

He can’t find Clint, but he sees the evidence of him, and Natasha is there on the streets, beautiful and deadly. 

Steve smiles and his blood turns cold. 

Because there, in black and his familiar muzzle, a blue star emblazoned on his chest, is Bucky. 

~*~ 

He hears about it in whispers. 

~*~ 

The Winter Soldier was a legend, a ghost story murmured in the halls of the intelligence community for decades. 

That legend follows him, as he steps into the role of Avenger, shield in one hand, rifle in the other. 

“They don’t let him in the field like that very often,” Sam says. “Ross likes him for stealth.” 

“He’d be good at that,” Steve says, dully. 

“Steve--” 

“Is he happy?” 

Sam’s mouth snaps shut, and he stares at Steve, dislief bright in his dark gaze. “You know, he asked me the same thing.” 

Something aching and fragile turns in his chest and he breathes through it, through stabbing pain of it. 

“I’m gonna tell you what I told him,” Sam says. “Stop being a dumbass.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm super behind on this because work is INSANE right now, but I'm planning on catching up before the end of the month! Thanks for hanging in there. <3


	16. Wild

**Wild**

He dreams about it, sometimes. 

Not on days when he's sent out to kill, muzzled and leashed to Ross's guard dogs--but on days when he trains with Tasha and Sam, when Tony grins at him over his metal arm and they fight together, and he's not a ghost, when he's not a wild thing never quite tamed, but docile enough to suit his master's purposes. 

When he feels like a person and not a tool, he dreams. 

Of a mountain, trees and shadow dappled paths, of a barn half finished and a hissing feral cat, of Red, soft and warm tucked under his chin, and Steve, pliant and sweet, licking into his mouth, and the taste of happiness. 

When he is more man than machine, he dreams of a time when he was happy. 

~*~ 

Natasha tells him Steve is living with Sam in Harlem, and he aches with it, with how close he is, and how far away. 

"Am I doing the right thing?" he asks, and Tony tips his head. 

The billionaire has never bothered to lie to Bucky, and he knows that Steve and Sam and Natasha will, will spin pretty well meaning lies, knows that Ross has never done anything but lie to him, but Tony--

Tony will tell him the truth. 

"You're protecting him. For now, anyway." 

It's a dodge. They both know it.

Bucky catches his eyes, and Tony huffs. "You traded yourself for him. But what happens when Ross gets tired of just you. What happens when he wants a match set? For that matter--how long is this for, Bucky? When do you and Steve get to go home?" 

Bucky doesn't answer. He doesn't have an answer. 

His home burnt when Ross sent soldiers to take Steve and he thinks--maybe wild animals covered in blood like him don't get to go home. 

~*~ 

He dreams sometimes. 

He wakes and he kills and he kills and he kills and he kills. 

And when he is very lucky, he dreams, sometimes. 

~*~ 

"Is he happy?" 

Sam gives him an unhappy stares. "Neither of you dumbasses get it," he says. "Neither of you are happy. Neither of you will be, so long as this shit goes on." 

Bucky doesn't answer that. 

"You aren't going to wipe away what Hydra made you by becoming the attack dog for Thaddeus Ross," Natasha tells him, and he scowls. He kills a drug lord in Columbia and starts a revolution and she looks at him, her eyes unfathomably sad. "You need to know who you're fighting for." 

"I'm an Avenger," he says. 

"And I was a SHIELD agent. Doesn't mean what I did for SHIELD was *right." 

~*~ 

"Tony," he says, one night. He's slipped his leash, slipped into Harlem to watch Steve sleeping and into the Tower, where Ross can't quite reach. 

"Will you help him?" 

"How?" Tony asks, his gaze sharp, his expression blank. 

Bucky shakes his head and says, "I don't know--he needs--" He flounders and Tony doesn't catch him, doesn't coax him along. He licks his lips and thinks about the man shivering alone in Sam's apartment and the happy warmth of Steve against his side in their cabin. "When you found me--you made me safe and whole, for him. I need you to make him safe and whole, for him." 

Tony is quiet, and then, "No matter the costs?" 

Bucky nods, "He can't live like that, Tony. He's breaking." 

Tony sighs. Rubs his eyes and nods. "Ok. I'll--I'll do what I can." 

Bucky smiles, a wordless thanks and slips away, a shadow in the night, a wild animal returning to it's cage


	17. Ornament

**Ornament**

When they were young--before the war and the ice and Hydra and the endless years that never seemed to touch them--they always made a big deal of the holidays. 

Bucky liked to sing carols and dance Steve around their tiny apartment. They never had much in the way of presents or turkey, but they had each other and the holiday, and for Christmas, Bucky’d carefully unpack a box of glass ornaments, hang them with reverent care on the wisp of a tree he’d scrunge up and smile at it, all bright eyed and awed. 

They were his grandmother’s, blown glass stained and heavy and lovely. 

Watching a documentary about himself, about the remains they found in that tiny cold water flat he shared with Bucky, where they were happiest and together--he wonders what happened to them. 

He wonders if they were destroyed, like so much else that they have loved. 

~*~

"Steve," Tony says, and there's a world of disappointment in his voice. "You can't keep doing this." 

"What?" Steve asks, dully and Tony sighs. 

"Nothing, Cap." 

~*~ 

The truth is--knows he's reacting badly. That the lethargy and helplessness that he's sunk into is paralyzing and unfamiliar. There's a part of him that is screaming to fight, to tear down the world until it gives him back Bucky, to rip apart anyone even remotely responsible for shattering the peaceful mountaintop idyl they had stolen. 

Sam makes noises about therapy and depression and he remembers when George Barnes died, the way Winnie had taken to her bed for a month, her eyes bright and dry from under her blankets, but unable to bring herself to leave the bed. 

"It's too much, Stevie," she whispered. "The world--it's too much." 

He didn't understand then, didn't understand the way Becca and Bucky had moved around her, gentle and accommodating, or the way Sarah cooked for her and tended the babies while she lingered there. 

He understands it now. 

He thinks that kind of too much could have crushed her. 

He thinks it might crush him. 

~*~ 

"Do you love him?" Tony asks. There's ash in his hair, and scratches in the armor, and blood splashed on his throat and the arc reactor. 

"Is he--" 

"Do you love him?" Tony asks, again, fierce.

"Of course," Steve snaps, fear surging past the numbness, "Is he ok? Is he  _ hurt _ ?" 

"He's being used as a leashed killer by Thaddeus Ross," Tony scoffs. "Of course he's not ok." 

Steve's stomach lurches and Tony glares. "What the hell are you gonna do about it?" 

Steve's mouth opens, and closes, and opens again--but he doesn't say anything. 

"Bucky would do anything for you--he's proving that. He would become the Winter Soldier again,  _ for _ you. What are you willing to do for him?" 

Tony doesn't wait for an answer that Steve doesn't have to give. 

He leaves, the scent of blood and smoke wafting behind him. 

~*~ 

"Sam," Steve says, his voice choked and hurt. "I think--I think I need some help." 

Sam's hands are gentle as they hold Steve up, and pull him close and wrap around the back of his throat, protective and safe. "Ok, man. Ok."

~*~ 

It's two months. 

Two months of therapy and medicine and a slow burning rage and turning that question over and over in his head and he thinks--maybe it's too late. 

Maybe he's too late. 

He picks up the phone anyway. 

"What do you want, Cap?" 

"You asked what I'm willing to do for him," Steve says and Tony goes silent on the other end of the line. " _ Anything _ ." 

He can almost hear Tony's smile, wide and gleeful and touched with malice. "It's about fucking time." 

For the first time in months, Steve grins. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Steve has been really passive since the cabin was burnt in chapter 8. I hope I conveyed his depression in a way that makes sense. I promise things are gonna get better before we finish this story.   
Depression manifests in so many ways and the defeated giving up that Steve has sunk into, a lethargy that doesn't really stop his life but keeps him from fighting back? Is how mine manifests most often. Hopefully it resonates with some of y'all.


End file.
